I. Technical Field
The present invention relates to portable information-processing equipment, such as a laptop personal computer (hereinafter called “laptop PC” as an abbreviated expression, appropriately), and more specifically relates to a battery-pack housing structure for such information-processing equipment.
II. Description of the Related Art
As is well known, in general, portable information-processing equipment, such as laptop PCs, can be driven by electricity supplied thereto from rechargeable batteries. In cases where a battery pack constituted by such batteries which are unitized, is mounted and housed in information-processing equipment, generally, the chassis for the main body of the information-processing equipment is partially cut away in a concave shape at the bottom portion and a side portion thereof to form a housing section, such that the battery pack can be inserted into the housing section from the side of the chassis and can be housed therein. Further, the battery pack can be removed therefrom, by pulling it out in an opposite direction. Further, such a battery pack is generally formed to basically have a substantially-rectangular parallelepiped shape in its entirety, and the battery-pack housing section is further formed to have a concave shape which conforms thereto.
In order to insert and pull a battery pack into and from a housing section as easily and certainly as possible, Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2001-266826 discloses a structure which provides protruding portions extending in the direction of insertion on left and right side surfaces of a battery pack and, further, provides guide slots extending in the direction of insertion in left and right side walls of a housing section, such that the protruding portions engage with the guide slots for enabling inserting/pulling the battery pack into and from the housing section. With this structure, it is possible to stably guide a terminal included in the battery to a terminal included in the housing section. It is to be noted that, in the present specification, the term “inserting/pulling” means “inserting or pulling” and is used for simply indicating them.
In cases of structures as the conventional structure, in general, the battery pack is inserted/pulled into and from the housing section, while the upper flat surface portion (the mounting flat surface portion) of the battery pack which opposes to the housing-section ceiling wall portion, out of the upper and lower flat surface portions of the battery pack, is slid against the housing-section ceiling portion (namely, while they rub against each other), and while the battery pack is guided by the guide mechanism constituted by the protruding portions and the guide slots.
In cases where the battery pack is inserted/pulled thereinto and therefrom while the mounting flat surface portion of the battery pack is slid against the ceiling wall portion of the housing section (namely, while they rub against each other), there is a possibility to induce excessively-large sliding resistances in inserting/pulling the battery pack thereinto and therefrom due to dimension tolerances in respective portions, which may make it hard to smoothly insert/pull it, thereby degrading the operability in inserting/pulling the battery pack.
Further, if the battery pack is repeatedly inserted/pulled at states where there are such large sliding resistances, this will induce degradation of the surface state, such as the occurrences of surface damages in the mounting flat surface of the battery pack and the ceiling wall surface of the housing section, which is not preferable. In such cases, problems as follows may be induced. For example, in cases where a coating is applied to the mounting flat surface, the coating may be exfoliated, and in cases where a nameplate of the battery pack is attached to the mounting flat surface or in cases where nameplate information is printed thereon, the indication thereof may be scraped to be hard to see.
In order to address these problems, it is possible to conceive provision of a slight gap between the mounting flat surface of the battery pack and the ceiling wall portion of the housing section. However, the provision of such a gap will facilitate the occurrence of “fluttering” in the battery pack at a state where it is housed, which will induce disadvantages in attaining a stable housing state. This will facilitate the occurrence of wear in the connecter portion for establishing electric connection, thereby inducing the problem of the occurrence of contact failures.